Many of the everyday consumer products, such as pens, cosmetic products, etc., in addition to their primary purpose, may also be used for advertisement and marketing purposes. For example, pens having a company's logo may be distributed to potential customers at trade shows or other marketing events. It is, thereby, desirable to have an easy and cost effective way of customizing the products for a particular customer.
There are a number of existing systems and methods for providing decorative elements for pens. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,915,554 to Yang describes a process of molding and assembling a three-dimensional ornament for a pen. As shown in FIG. 8 of Yang, the pen includes a hollow tube with a cutout in the side wall corresponding to the shape of the molded ornament. A flexible molded cylindrical part with the ornament is fitted inside the hollow pen tube such that the ornament fits inside the cutout and protrudes from the outer surface of the pen. Then, a tubular sleeve in inserted inside the hollow pen tube to push the contact wall of the ornament against the wall of the hollow pen tube.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,471,433 to Lee describes a three-dimensional ring insert for a pen, which includes a pattern ring with through holes and a flexible insert with protrusions placed inside the pattern ring such that the protrusions extend out of the through holes. A liner ring is placed inside the pattern ring to sandwich the flexible insert between the wall of the pattern ring and the liner ring. A connector ring is further provided having a middle portion with a larger diameter corresponding to the outer diameter of the pen body. During the pen assembly, as shown in FIG. 2, one end of the assembled ring insert is screwed onto one pen part and the other end is force fitted onto the connector ring, which is in turn force fitted into the other pen part.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,019,536 to Lee describes a three-dimensional pattern insert for a pen cap, as best shown in FIG. 2. The pen cap has an opening in a sidewall corresponding to the shape of insert pattern. The insert is a flexible strip with a 3-dimensional pattern thereon, which is compressed and inserted inside the pen cap such that the patterns protrudes through the opening in the cap. A liner ring is then inserted into the pen cap to fix the insert in place between the cap wall and the liner ring.
European Patent No. 0456617 B1 to Stilolinea S. r. l. describes a decorative pen construct with different parts of the pen having different colors. As shown in FIGS. 1-3, the pen is constructed of a clip portion and a body portion, and a tubular connecting element connecting these portions together. The connecting element has a middle section in the form of a circular projection with a larger outer diameter. When the pen is assembled, each end of the connecting element is inserted into a corresponding pen portion such that the pen portions touch the middle section of the connecting element, and one end of the element extends out of the clip portion of the pen. The connecting element has a color that is different from the color of the pen portions and therefore, the visible portions of the connecting element provide a decorative effect.
However, the above discussed prior art systems suffer from a number of disadvantages. First, the prior art systems typically require additional parts in order to secure decorative inserts inside the pen once assembled, thereby making the manufacturing process more complex and costly. Furthermore, the prior art systems require specially manufactured pen parts with complicated cut-outs to accommodate the decorative inserts, and the inserts typically cannot be easily removed and replaced with a different insert once placed inside the pen.
What is desired, therefore, is an improved decorative insert that may be easily customized with any desirable decorative pattern and then used with already manufactured components, such as pen or cosmetic packaging components, thereby providing a custom-made but cost efficient product. What is further desired is an improved decorative insert that is very simple in design, without requiring additional parts or manufacturing steps for assembly with the product, thereby reducing manufacturing time and costs.